A Lenten Reflection
Purging of What is Unclean Within
Ash Wednesday is upon us! It is the beginning of the liturgical Season of Spring offering opportunities for new life by liquidating that which hinders the growth of the healthy spiritual tissue nourishing our God-given virtues of faith, hope, and love. The Season of Lent is the suitable circumstance in which we are led by the Spirit to cooperate with the grace of God in the cleansing of the rubbish, poisons, and other destructive fragments lining our spiritual arterial walls.
The three mainstays of Lenten faith in practice are Prayer, Fasting, and Giving Alms. These three practices, if motivated at the outset by even the slightest measure of love, serve as the enzymes, microbes, and other natural chemicals which cleanse, heal, and give us strength of purpose in becoming mature in Christ.
One of our Dominican friars died recently at the age of 79. In the last ten days of his life he was surrounded by many of our Dominican family members, hospital, health care center, and hospice nursing staff who accompanied him in the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. I noticed that in those few days before his last breath, the nursing staff would change his 'depends' undergarments and bed linens often. In speaking of this with the head nurse I learned a beautiful reality. She said: "Our brother is going through a cleansing. It is one of God's little miracles. I am Ethiopian and in my years of nursing with the infirm and dying of my country and with infirm and dying here, I have realized that God has so fashioned our bodies that our body cleanses itself little by little of all poisons and other unnecessary accumulations. God leaves the body purged so that the soul may fly free and pure to God at the moment of death." Not only are her words true and inspiring but also her care of our Dominican brother in assisting in his bodily cleansing is also at the heart of Christian maturity in action. In our spirit, heart, and soul we need commit ourselves anew to be liberated from the gunk and mess of sin and other trespasses of God's will.
As we begin this Season of Lent, this forty days in the desert with Christ tempted, let us know that we are accompanied by the Holy Spirit. In a world clogged with injustice and other violence, may we take the risk to embark on a cleansing journey, motivated by our longing to love God with all of our being and to love our neighbors as ourselves. We can choose to be freed from unnecessary and hurtful accumulations residing in our human heart. Blessings in abundance as we rid ourselves of the poisons of untruth to make room for the Truth Who already rests deep within us.
"Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense. Thoroughly wash me from my guilt and of my sin cleanse me." (Psalm 51:3-4)
Fr Chris Eggleton, O.P.
